Last weekend’s orgy of violence in Chicago actually made the national news. With 78 shooting victims and 12 dead, it well and truly should have. But as a closer look makes extremely clear Chicago has a virulent gang problem, not a gun problem. What’s more, Chicago Police internal documents show gang involvement in virtually every victim of Windy City violence last weekend.

Last Sunday, on the day after the observance of Illinois’ new Barack Obama Day holiday, Chicago saw some truly horrific violence – even by Windy City standards. It was almost as if John Wick had come to visit Rahm’s Paradise by the Lake after someone killed his puppy.

Behind the scenes, Chicago Police put out a “Detailed Situational Report” (DSR) each weekday. On it, their “Data Warehouse” lists shooting incidents and murders along with guns recovered.

Inside, the report details the names and descriptions of each of the victims and suspects, including any gang affiliations and the location of each incident. Furthermore, it shows each person’s criminal history, a description of their injuries and their Strategic Subject List score. Lastly, it contains a narrative of what happened.

Because it’s Chicago — where support from “the community” typically hovers near zero — police seldom identify any suspects, much less make arrests. In fact, CPD has made arrests in only 13% of homicides so far in 2018.

Gang violence has been a problem for well over 100 years in this country with criminal access to guns only increasing as years go by. By funding the political campaign’s of candidates vowing to do nothing to interfere with the NRA’s agenda against laws that might limit access to firearms in any way the association clearly stands in the way of those working to improve our chances to keep guns of any type out of the hands of owners with criminal intent or psychological problems that might make gun ownership a danger to others. Wake up America, the NRA is not your friend; in fact the organization is interested only in the profits of the gun manufacturing industries that support them and pay the exorbitant salaries of their officers and administrators.